Dougherty County's CRCT policies reviewed

ALBANY, GA (WALB) – Dougherty County school administrators get a refresher course on testing procedures before this years Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.

Principals, Assistant Principals, and Counselors from all Dougherty County elementary and middle schools spent several hours going over the testing procedures and policies. State inspectors will monitoring eight elementary schools that had suspiciously high numbers of wrong answers changed to right answers during last year's testing.

Next week when students take their tests, they won't have their home room teacher in front of the class, it will be a teacher from another classroom to ensure the tests are administered correctly.

"If they mark two you can not pick one for them, you have to leave it," DCSS testing coordinator Renee Bridge warned the group of school administrators.

It's a strict warning given to principals and counselors who will be test coordinators for Dougherty County's elementary and middle schools next week. After a high number of erasures on 2009 CRCT's in first and second grades the pressure is on.

"I would say more attention to the protocol and the procedures that have already been established for the Dougherty County School System," said Laytona Stephenson, International Studies Elementary Magnet School Assistant Principal.

Policies were reviewed again and answer sheets were counted, double checked, and signed out. It won't be home room teachers testing students this year.

"This year we have had several testing sessions where the students had a different person administrating the exam just to try to get them use to somebody they were not as familiar with," said Bridges.

Students will still be encouraged to use the process of elimination, but extra marks on answer documents will be discouraged, especially after last year.

"We found children that had marks on, for example all four, A,B, C, and D answers and so they could tell that it was evident they were working very hard at it," said DCSS Superintendent Dr. Sally Whatley.

At the end of the day answers sheets will be put in envelopes sealed with tape, signed in, and locked up. Once testing is complete, there's a new procedure for removing extra marks.

"Each school will formulate a clean up committee of non teachers, with the test coordinator and or principal present they will be monitored, clean up of the answer documents will take place," said Bridges.

All in an effort to make sure there are no questions when this years tests are completed and scored. Dr. Whatley talked a little more Monday, about some of the patterns examiners noticed in Indiana, they say if a student erased a lot of answers in language arts, they did the same in math, and reading.

Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests will begin April 12th and will run though the 22nd. Testing will be done in the morning and school administrator encourage parents to have kids at school on time.

Children play non-competitive baseball to grow teamwork skills (Source: WALB)

Some children with special needs hit the baseball diamond for their fourth season today! The Challenger League, a Leesburg-based non-profit, gives children with special needs the opportunity to play non-competitive sports with each other.

Some children with special needs hit the baseball diamond for their fourth season today! The Challenger League, a Leesburg-based non-profit, gives children with special needs the opportunity to play non-competitive sports with each other.